Building Common Ground 2013 will focus on Building Community through the Arts and Popular Culture. In our diversity, a path to common ground may be found through the arts and popular culture - music, poetry, stories, movies, television programs and sports infuse our day-to-day lives and collective memories. They are our "common ground." A stellar schedule of speakers has been chosen for this year's Building Common Ground series that you will not want to miss.
All events are free and open to the public.
This program is made possible in part by a grant from the Knight Fund at the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley, Inc.
COMMUNITY BUILT THROUGH STORIES
Book: Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the Storycorps Project
Author Appearance:
Thursday, February 28, 2013
7:00pm, Columbus Public Library Auditorium
Book-signing and reception to follow. Books will be on sale.
The Colbert Report
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Dave Isay is the founder of StoryCorps, a nonprofit oral organization that honors and celebrates the lives of everyday people through listening. To date, more than 90,000 people have participated in StoryCorps, many of whom have come as a part of special initiatives to reach underrepresented voices. Millions more hear StoryCorps each week on NPR. StoryCorps was honored with a rare institutional Peabody Award in 2007, and most recently, Peabody and Columbia DuPont Awards for its coverage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Dave is the recipient of numerous broadcasting honors, including four other Peabody Awards for his documentary work and a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. He is the author/editor of numerous books that grew out of his public radio documentary work, including three StoryCorps books: Listening Is an Act of Love (2007), Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps, and All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps (2012)-all New York Times bestsellers.
COMMUNITY INSPIRED TO ACTION THROUGH ART
Books: The Prosaic Soul of Nikki Giovanni, and Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: poems and not quite poems
Author Appearance:
Thursday, April 18, 2013
7:00pm, G.W. Carver High School Auditorium
3100 8th Street, Columbus
Book-signing and reception to follow. Books will be on sale.
Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the most widely-read American poets, she prides herself on being "a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English." Giovanni remains as determined and committed as ever to the fight for civil rights and equality. Always insisting on presenting the truth as she sees it, she has maintained a prominent place as a strong voice of the Black community.
Ms. Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She and her sister spent their summers with their grandparents in Knoxville, and she graduated with honors from Fisk University, her grandfather's alma mater, in 1968; after graduating from Fisk, she attended the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, and within the next year published a second book, thus launching her career as a writer. Early in her career she was dubbed the "Princess of Black Poetry," and over the course of more than three decades of publishing and lecturing she has come to be called both a "National Treasure" and, most recently, one of Oprah Winfrey's twenty-five "Living Legends."
Many of Giovanni's books have received honors and awards. Her autobiography, Gemini, was a finalist for the National Book Award; Love Poems, Blues: For All the Changes, Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Acolytes, and Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat were all honored with NAACP Image Awards. Blues: For All the Changes reached #4 on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller list, a rare achievement for a book of poems. Most recently, her children's picture book Rosa, about the civil rights legend Rosa Parks, became a Caldecott Honors Book, and Bryan Collier, the illustrator, was given the Coretta Scott King award for best illustration. Rosa also reached #3 on The New York Times Bestseller list. Shortly after its release, Bicycles: Love Poems reached #1 on Amazon.com for Poetry.
Ms. Giovanni is currently the Gloria D. Smith Professor of Black Studies and a University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA.
COMMUNITY IDENTITY FROM POPULAR CULTURE
Books: Eating the Dinosaur, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
Author Appearance:
Thursday, October 4, 2013
7:00pm, Columbus Public Library Auditorium
Book-signing and reception to follow. Books will be on sale.
One of the most singular and exciting cultural critics of our generation, Chuck Klosterman captures what it feels like to navigate our pop-obsessed, media-saturated culture. In bestsellers like Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, he shows us why "pop" is a conversation anyone can join in on, and why it matters.
He is not a detached academic who deconstructs pop culture at arm's-length with a deadening sterility. He's a regular guy whose intellectual curiosity is insatiable, infectious, and surprisingly insightful. Klosterman is a contributor to the sports site, Grantland, and the bestselling author of several non-fiction books, including Killing Yourself to Live and Fargo, Rock City, of which Stephen King said, "writing about pop culture doesn't get any better than this, or funnier."
In his talks, Klosterman discusses how pop culture shapes a person's identity. Why do so many of us define ourselves by the media we consume - the music we love, the movies we obsessively reference, the television we can't stop watching? With inspired leaps of logic and a sense for relatable minutiae, Klosterman shows us how pop culture becomes inextricably linked with our memories, how it helps us understand the world, and what this says about us, as individuals and as a society. Bright with provocation, hilarious non-sequiturs and good-natured debate, an evening with Klosterman will help you see our accelerating world, and the little connections that make it fascinating, in a newly appreciative light.
